<p>I want to be a Japanese professor one day.
Im not a native speaker, so would that hurt me.
Cause liek what if i was a native level speaker,
would great colleges hire me (NYU, BU, etc.)(not amazing ivy leahue but really good schools)
or is there no chance since im not a native speaker</p>
<p>Well, at my school there is an assitant professor of Japanese who is NOT a native speaker. I suppose getting hired depends largely on what exactly your research area is. If it is pedagogical then being a native speaker might help, but if it is literature etc. then your record of publications would be more important. </p>
<p>As for chances of anyone actually becoming a language professor: good luck. While it is possible the pickings are slim. Academia is a tough field, especially for the humanities.</p>
<p>BIGTWIX,</p>
<p>Do a quick survey of most of the major schools’ Japanese instructional faculty, and you’ll find that the vast majority of them are lecturers (not research faculty) and Japanese.</p>
<p>The vast majority of non-Japanese who are faculty in East Asian Studies/Languages departments are not teaching the language. They are studying literature, history, culture, or interdisciplinary issues. </p>
<p>Whether or not you agree, the opinion of most departments seems to be that native speakers are better sources of instruction.</p>
<p>I just had a discussion with someone on this and I’d like to note that the guy had a Caucassian teacher teaching Japanese in HS. So HS teaching jobs remain available to you…</p>
<p>I’m a little confused by this question. Are you just interested in teaching Japanese language courses? In that case, in most top-tier schools (including NYU and BU), foreign language courses are taught by graduate students. Being a native speaker isn’t necessary, but you do have to usually be a PhD candidate the East Asian studies (or, sometimes, Comparative Literature) department, which means you have to be able to demonstrate an extremely high proficiency/fluency in the language. </p>
<p>So the good news for you is no, you don’t have to be a native speaker. But you also cannot usually make a career as a language instructor at most universities. Like I said, those positions go to graduate students (why hire out when they have cheap in-house labor?). If you want a longer-term position teaching language (and not, say, literature or cinema or culture), I would suggest looking into teaching at a high school or community college or perhaps a small liberal arts school that doesn’t have a large graduate program.</p>
<p>rhizomic,</p>
<p>Having taken language courses at two universities (one which is undoubtedly considered a top school), I don’t find that this is the case. Most undergrad language instruction, as far as I can see, is handled by full-time instructors who are, by and large, native speakers. </p>
<p>I know this carries over to a couple of Ivies as well.</p>
<p>UCLAri,</p>
<p>I apologize for the misinformation then. I can, of course, only speak from my experience, which was at NYU, where undergraduate language instruction was predominantly handled by graduate students. This is also the case in the programs that I am deciding between for graduate study (one a top public school, the other an ivy). I know, however, that foreign language departments are woefully understaffed and will hire out to instructors, but only after they’ve gone through their department and, usually, the comparative literature department. </p>
<p>That said, the original question asked about being a “professor,” which is different from being an instructor. And professors generally don’t teach language courses (they didn’t spend 5-10 years sweating after a PhD to teach a classroom full of freshmen how to conjugate verbs). Hence my stated confusion about the question.</p>
<p>rhizomic,</p>
<p>Yeah, like I said, most instructors are natives, whereas with professors it’s more diverse. I also speak from the experience of East Asian languages, where the curve for teaching might be different. I suppose it’s unfair for either one of us to try to establish a blanket rule.</p>
<p>UCLAri,</p>
<p>Not to mention, native speakers and graduate students, especially in top national literatures/area studies departments, are certainly not mutually exclusive categories. 
</p>
<p>And after all, all those diverse professors probably had to put in some time teaching language courses in their grad student days. Though you’re right – East Asian languages has a much higher teaching curve than romance languages. I’ve noticed also that while the graduate programs tend to be smaller, the number of language course sections needed to deal with increasing popularity (especially in Japanese and Chinese) are getting larger and larger, which might account for the “out-sourcing” to instructors. </p>
<p>Regardless, I think the conclusion is something along the lines of “being a native speaker isn’t required, but it helps.”</p>
<p>That’s a good one! :)</p>
<p>I’m currently an undergraduate at NYU minoring in Italian (considered one of the top Italian departments in the US), and all of my language classes have been taught by instructors with PhDs, all of whom have been native speakers.</p>
<p>Are the Italian instructors at NYU professors? If so, what are their primary areas of research?</p>
<p>Those in the Italian department teaching strictly language courses are considered “lecturers,” but I really don’t know what this implies. I know my current instructor, who is a “lecturer” and not a professor, does research on language pedagogy.</p>
<p>I took a class in Japanese Culture from a Professor who was an American of European descent and a non-native speaker. I’m fairly sure that she taught language classes as well. This was years ago at a well-respected flagship state university.</p>